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Where informal procedures are quasi-formal : cross-border trade between West and Central Africa (Английский)

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This note outlines the critical barriers that constrain trade between Nigeria and Cameroon, describes the practical norms that have emerged as a response to those constraints, and recommends key reforms for the governments to undertake. It is often difficult... Подробнее +This note outlines the critical barriers that constrain trade between Nigeria and Cameroon, describes the practical norms that have emerged as a response to those constraints, and recommends key reforms for the governments to undertake. It is often difficult to get an accurate picture of the magnitude of informal cross-border trade in most developing countries. Many factors contribute to this difficulty, but chief among them are weak state institutions, widespread practices by traders to underreport trade in order to avoid high taxes, and porous borders that are hard to monitor and permit trade to cross borders unrecorded. In the case of Cameroon and Nigeria, officially recorded non-oil bilateral trade flows represent only a minor fraction of both countries overall trade. In 2010 and 2011, recorded official trade data show that non-oil trade flows from Nigeria to Cameroon were between 1 USD and 10 million USD, while Cameroon exported an estimated 10 to 30 million USD to Nigeria. Removing barriers to trade between the two economic blocs in West and Central Africa is of strategic importance for closer economic integration among countries in West and Central Africa, and to generate an Africa-wide free trade area by 2017, an objective endorsed by African governments.
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